Paige Rense Noland on Leaving Architectural Digest

Paige Rense Nolan, left, and two Architectural Digest covers from her tenure as the magazine’s editor.Credit
Left: Robert Wright for The New York Times

Look, there’s Cher on the cover in silver snakeskin, and looking not a day over 40. She’s a survivor, to be sure, and so is Architectural Digest, the shelter behemoth that seems hardly to have aged at all in the nearly four decades since a cheap quarterly transmogrified into a European-style glossy in a tiny Los Angeles office. But last week, Paige Rense Noland, the magazine’s 81-year-old editor, inventor and fierce brand steward, called it quits after 35 years on the job, leaving industry insiders scratching their heads over who would succeed her without rocking AD’s very sturdy boat.

You could carp about its staid layout, its flat, bright photos of the third and fourth homes of studio executives, hedge-fund managers and movie stars — the National Geographic of home magazines, some said — but like National Geographic, it was the one people saved. Here was a shiny catalog of the good life, organized on a simple premise: the magazine-as-club. Ms. Noland made sure that when your house appeared in Architectural Digest it was like a victory lap, proof you’d joined the winners’ circle. “I just wanted the decorators to be the stars,” Ms. Noland said. “I just wanted to report what they did.”

One decorator told me your job began with a murder.

Architectural Digest was just this publication that if you bought an ad you received coverage for whatever, it might be a garage or anything. When I joined, with the art director that made four of us. There was an editor, and he was the one who was killed, and he was very nice. I’m not sure he had ever read a magazine. He had been a decorator in Texas and he wrote to the owner and said I’d like to edit your magazine. His name was Bradley Little, and one night he was in a bar with a friend and it was late and a guy jumped into the back seat of their convertible. The friend gave the guy his wallet and Brad didn’t, and bang, that was it. In the meantime, the owners tried to find someone who would work for what I was making, and no one would, and by default I became editor in chief.

If Architectural Digest is a catalog of the good life, how has that good life changed in the last 35 years?

Everything has changed: the clients have changed, the decorators have changed, attitudes have changed. People used to be afraid of architects. Actually, there was a lot of fear of decorators, too. People didn’t know all the things they know now. The decorators were not stars, they were treated like the help, and yet people weren’t sure what they wanted. They had a fear of being labeled as someone with no taste or bad taste. In the beginning, they loved the Louis and they loved formal. Now, the clients are more sophisticated, and they tell the designer what to do. We used to call them decorators. Michael Greer said, “I don’t care if they call me a decorator or a designer, just so long as the check clears.”

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Who’s writing all those checks now?

It’s what we used to call new money, but it’s not really that, it’s recent money. Also men are involved now. They weren’t involved for a long time. I mean, they wrote the checks, but now sometimes they absolutely dominate. That was one thing that helped us. “Architectural Digest” is a misnomer, because it’s not about just architecture, but it made the men comfortable. Our readership is half men.

All those celebrities! Was there ever a house that surprised you because it didn’t look like its owner?

A celebrity client is like an annuity for a designer; they just keep paying dividends. The first time we published Woody Allen’s house, I expected it to be the quintessential bachelor apartment, very spare and minimal and full of books, but instead it was early American. Now, Diane [Keaton] is extraordinary. She could be a decorator. She’s really good, and she has a great eye. And she’s nice. Not all celebrities are fun.

Anything still on your to-do list?

I always wanted to publish a list of the clients who don’t pay.

It’s a lousy practice. Do you think there’s more of it going on, and if so, why?

These men are sloshing around with millions and millions, and they are arrogant and they think they can get away with anything, and through the years they pretty much have.

What’s the definition of luxury for this crowd?

We’re still in a period of heavy consumption, because the appetite is still there, but now it’s sort of underground. Once they have the four houses and the jet — at least one — and they have the yacht and the art collection, then what do they do? I can’t say that this is the trend that it was shaping up to be before the recession, but the next thing I think is philanthropy. Because the rest is basically things, and things aren’t enough.

Why do people love shelter magazines?

We look to magazines to see how other people live. People say: “I can’t relate to Architectural Digest. Why don’t you show how real people live?” I say: “These are real people, and they do live this way. They just happen to be people who can pretty much afford whatever they want.”

A version of this article appears in print on June 10, 2010, on Page D2 of the New York edition with the headline: Parting Glances at the House She Built. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe